Eprror 
JULIUS GOEBEL Universrry ( OF ILLINOIS. 


ene 


“AssociaTe Eprrors 


Ma < V. JONES AND G, T. FLOM 
| | University oF ILLINOIS. 


" Co-operaTing Eprtors _ ALAN Ai 2 


“HERMANN COLLITZ, Jouns Horns University 
_ GEORGE 0. CURME, ‘NorTHWesTERN UNIVERSITY 


WILLIAM Ww. LAWRENCE, Conumsra Universiry, aie 








ENGLISH>GERMAN LITERARY INFLUENCES. BIB- 
LIOGRAPHY AND SURVEY, by Lawrence Marsden Price. 
University of California Publications in Modern Philology. 
Vol. 9, No. 1-2, pp. 1-616. 8 vo. Berkeley, 1919-1920. 


When Professor Julius Goebel in the foreword to the first 
volume of his series, ‘‘Germanic Literature and Culture,” 
(Oxford University Press, New York) expressed the hope that 
American scholarship, owing to its joint heritage of English 
and German culture, would develop independence and original- 
ity in the study of the multiple and complex relations of English 
and German literature, he had probably no thought of seeing 
within the short time of six years the publication of a work 
summarizing the studies of at least one side of these relations. 
The present book by Professor Lawrence Marsden Price will 
be welcomed by every student of the subject in question, not 
only because it is the first attempt of its kind but also on account 
of the painstaking research it represents. It is divided into two 
parts: Part I, the Bibliography, in which the author attempts 
to bring together a practically complete list of titles relating 
to English>German literary influences, which he defines in 
the introduction to mean “the influences of English literature 
upon German literature.’”’ Part II, the Survey, furnishes a 
digest of the Bibliography by the discussion of some representa- 
tive works of each trend of influence. Asa result we have before 
us a sort of history of modern German literature, accentuating 
English influences exclusively. It is to be hoped that the ex- 


1 


Uhlendorf 


tensive influence of German literature upon English letters will 
soon find a similarly complete representation. 

The bibliography of about one thousand titles, supplemented 
by some eighty addenda to the Survey, is supposed to extend 
to January 1920 for publications in English, but only to 1913 
as far as titles gathered from the Jahresberichte are concerned, 
except that the Shakespeare-Jahrbuch was perused up to 1919. 
It is to be regretted that Professor Price evidently did not have 
at his disposal vol. 25 (1914) of the Jahresberichte, printed in 
1916, nor the bibliographical part of vol. 26, which, though 
covering the year 1915, did not appear until 1919. The omis- 
sion of this material, or, in other words, the somewhat premature 
publication of this first part of the work, is to be regretted all 
the more since it was to be expected that in spite of the unfavor- 
able political conditions, the Shakespeare tercentenary celebra- 
tion would bring forth a great number of new investigations. 
In fact during the year 1915 there appeared at least twelve 
publications pertaining to the subject which are not listed in 
the present bibliography. Doubtless there were many more 
such publications in 1916. 

As a working bibliography Prof. Price’s compilation is of 
great value. Two indexes with relatively few errors and mis- 


prints, as well as good cross references are excellent guides to 


its use. The arrangement on the whole is good, though not 
always consistent. (Flagrant exceptions are [26]-[48], [92]- 
[99], [105]-115] which are neither in alphabetical, nor chrono- 
logical, nor logical order.) Consistency, one of the bibliogra- 
pher’s chief virtues, seems to be wanting also in other parts of 
the work under discussion. (1) Author’s names: First names 
should be treated uniformly. Indiscriminate use of full names 
and initials is to be avoided, except where full names could.not 
be obtained.1 Prof. Price seems to have used whichever form 
he found in his sources, whether it be Goedecke, Jahresberichte, 
Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, or Betz’s La Literature comparée, the 
starting point of this compilation. Thus it happens again and 
again that different forms are used for the same reviewer. Had 
the writer been familiar with the bibliographical referente 
works, he could also with but little trouble have found most of 
the author-entries, for which he gives only the last name? 


1 Tt is customary to use the longest form known. If not given, it can usually 
be found in one of the many bibliographical handbooks, of which A Catalogue 
of Books in the British Museum and the card catalogue of the Library of Con- 
gress, of which the Univ. of Cal. is doubtless a depository library, are most im- 
portant. 

2 Of the eight last-name entries the reviewer found with no trouble at all 
the following: Hitzig, Julius Eduard; Oldenberg, Hermann (same as referred 
to as Oldenberg, H. in [907]); Sachs, Karl Ernst August; Vogeler, Adolf; 
Zschalig, Heinrich. 


Reviews and Notes 


The reviewer, moreover, is at a loss to understand how a bibli- 
ographer can commit the error of indexing all names with the 
German von (there are nineteen of them) under V rather than 
under the family name. Thus Hohenhausen, Liliencron, 
Treitschke are looked for in vain under H, L,and T. (2) Titles: 
No title abbreviations should ever be used in a bibliography of 
this kind. This, the reviewer ventures to say, is one of the 
greatest shortcomings on the technical side of the bibliography. 
Thus we find on the first page of Prof. Price’s compilation 
Betz, L. P., Studien z. vgl. Lit.-gesch. d. neueren Zeit (cf. however, 
[197] which runs the length of six lines). If economy of material 
and time had to be practiced the Survey was the place to do it. 
In case titles are too long, they are to be dotted.? Here again 
the author seems to have followed his source. (3) Imprint 
(i.e., place and date of publication): This item is less important, 
but consistency is advisable even here. (4) Collation: a) If 
a pamphlet or a book, pagination must always be given. Of 
the first twelve entries five omit these data. This seems to be 
true in every case where Price drew from Betz. Whenever the 
entire work does not deal with the phase in question it would 
be extremely valuable to have the exact page reference given, 
i.e., [21] p. 106-110, 169-170; [149] p. 19-40; [841] p. 47-106.4 
This factor is of special importance in larger works such as 
[559a], Kontz’s Les Drames de la jeunesse de Schiller, 501p., 
and Ludwig’s Schiller und die deutsche Nachwelt, XII, 679p., 
where only very little deals with Shakespeare>Schiller, in 
fact so little that the latter ought to be omitted from this bibli- 
ography. In cases where we are dealing withtwoor more volumes 
a uniform designation, for instance, 2, 3 v., (not 2 v. or II vols., 
or 2 Bde., or again Bd. I and II) should be chosen. When 
dealing with periodicals and series publications abbreviations 
are in place, for this information has more the character of a 
note. But even in notes abbreviations as W. Meister and Th. 
Sendung [121] should be avoided. The reviewer wonders if 
suggestive abbreviations, such as are used in the Readers’ 
Guide to Periodical Literature would not have been preferable 
‘to ASNS (Herrig’s Archiv, a common designation by the way), 
or to a GpJ, or to a VVDPh even if it should have been at the 
expense of a page or two of the Survey. 

An excellent feature of the bibliography are the reviews 
cited® and the notes on the treatises. If there had been many 


3 Never is a bibliographer justified in constructing his own title as Price 
did in [115]. The entry should read: Das auslindische Drama .. . pt. VII, 
Das englische Drama, p. 319-321. 

4 In some cases, cf. [261], [499], [502] the author did this satisfactorily. 

5 The completeness of the number of reviews becomes somewhat question- 
able by the fact that Price is not even familiar with a review of one of his own 
publications, [845], viz. Lindau, H., Deutsche Litzeitg. v. 37 (1916), pp. 1878-9. 


3 


Uhlendorf 


more of the latter with an abundance of references and 
critical notations such as: Influence doubted by [XXX], or 
not exhaustive, or largely drawn upon by [YYY], the reviewer 
believes, the Survey might have been dispensed with altogether, 
and we would have a most valuable contribution to critical 
bibliography, provided, of course, that certain deficiencies in 
technique and the surprisingly large number of inaccuracies 
had first been eliminated. Had this method been followed 
there would have been occasion briefly to characterize many 
more entries, if not all; for anything from one word (premature, 
biased, farfetched, convincing, etc.), to a page or more, as for 
example i in the case of Béhtlingk or Gundolf, would have been 
enough. Had this been done the Ubersichtlichkeit of a bibliog- 
raphy in catalogue form would have been combined with the 
more critical and narrative form such as is found, e.g., in the 
“Critical Essay on Authorities” in Hart’s American Nation 
series. It is to be said however, that some parts, for example, 
pt. IIIa (19th century general American influences), are very 
good in this respect. This may be said of almost all Modern 
Language Association titles, in which cases the compiler found 
the papers conveniently summed up in the programs. 

There is appended to the Survey one page of corrigenda. 
To make the corrections complete the table would have to be 
enlarged to perhaps ten times its present size. The reviewer 
has checked a number of references to the Zettschr. f. vgl. 
Litgesch. and found on the first fifty pages amongst a total of 
twenty-one titles, eight incorrect, one of which [b] (Betz, No. 
[25] ) he could not locate at all.6 In the same manner he 
looked into the next four pages, pt. Ila, for references to the 
Shakes peare-Jahrbuch and to his regret found an even higher 
percentage of corrections to be made, namely, seven out of 
seventeen.’ And again out of sixteen references to Englische 


6 [39] for 147 read 149 


581 OOTY IX 
[124] “ 1897 ‘“ 1896 
[137] “ 337  ‘ 347 (incorrectly numbered in periodical) 
WED pages WE aaa ae 8. 
12251" 442 ee 438 
[302] 47h 4449" $< 439 


7 [417] for Brandle, A. read Forster 
“« delete Summary of above 
“ for 207 read 209 


[421] “ 271 “ 273 
[424] “ 123 “ 122 
[429] “ 350 “ 349 


[432] “ 349 “ 348 
[433] “XCOXXVITI “ XXXVI 


Reviews and Notes 


Studien on p. 54-71 (pt. IL b-c) six are incorrect.® If this 
represents the degree of accuracy of all citations then it must 
be admitted that a work in which about 40% of the references 
need correction has no strong claim to scientific exactness.? 
The reviewer wishes to suggest also that in addition to most 
titles which Prof. Price designates as showing no influence the 
following should be considered as not vital, and, therefore, 
ought to be omitted: [13a], no influence whatever; [26]; [82], 
translations from Sophocles only; [223]; [564]; [831a]; [948], part 
in question has not appeared. In place of these there might 
be added the following: 


Kettner, Gustav. Zu Schillers Gedichten. Ztsch. f. d. Philol. v. 17 (1885), 
p. 109-114. 
Pilgrim’s Progress>Schiller’s Der Pilgrim> Die Sehnsucht. 
Harris, Olive Caroline. Traces of English Sources in Schiller’s 
Poetry. Univ. of Ill. Master’s thesis. 1916. 
Ossian. Pilgrim’s Progress. 
Huebner, Alfred. Das erste deutsche Schaferidyll und seine Quellen. 
K6nigsberg—Diss. I910. II9Q p. 
Menzel, Wolfgang. Die deutsche Literatur. Stuttgart, 1828. av. V. 
I p. 21-32, 42-54. 
Schlapp, Otto, Kants Lehre vom Genie und a Entstehung der ‘Kritik 
der Urteilskraft.’ Gottingen, I90I. 463 
Burke, Home, Hume, Adam Smith, ‘Hutcheson, Shaftesbury, 
Addison, Pope, Young, Gerard. 


In the second part the author surveys the bulk of publica- 
tions on English> German literary influences by summarizing 
what he considers the most important and representative works. 
As to order of treatment and subdivision of subject matter he 


8 [444] for Gerschmann D. read H(ans) 
‘XXXV read XXXVI 


[534a] “ XX “ XXII 

[563] “ 135 «134 

[572] “ 468 “ 468-469 
ES oe “ XXII 


9 Some other errors upon which the reviewer chanced are: 

[21] Collignon, A, not V. 

[21a] Schmid=Schmidt. 

Heading following [67a] should, no doubt, precede it. 

[837] published in 1905, not 1904. 

Index of Investigators, Baumgartner, M. D., not M. P. 

Other suggestions are: 

[117] Frau Gottsched rather than A. L. V. Gottsched. 

[196] delete last sentence. Not true! 

804] say material supplementing . . 

[907] as well as [906] and [908] should be entered under Norton, Charles 
Eliot. 


Uhlendorf 


follows his Bibliography, i.e., I. The Eighteenth Century and 
before (excluding Shakespeare), II. Shakespeare in Germany, 
III. The Nineteenth Century and after (excluding Shakes- 
eare). 

. Although the single chapters are often but loosely connected, 
Price has succeeded well in building up a rather complete struc- 
ture. Upon closer examination one notices, however, that the 
attitude of many investigators whose works are discussed, as 
well as that of the compiler, is somewhat biased at times, and 
often uncritical. Every phenomenon which has an antecedent 
or a mere temporal precursor in English literature is unduly 
dwelt upon, while every indigenous growth and inherent, self- 
determining, and self-quickening tendency in German literature 
is underestimated, sometimes to the extent of being entirely 
overlooked. Only too often have parallel passages, themes, 
and plots been quoted and requoted as criteria and proof of 
an existing influence. . 

In the introduction the writer has indeed set a great task for 
himself by promising a work which, if these promises were ful- 
filled, would furnish a most valuable piece of literary eriticism. 
It seems, however, as if these prefatory remarks were formu- 
lated too late to safeguard the author in his attitude toward 
some trends of influence. Thus at the outset (p. 119) he says 
the following of the term ‘‘influence”’: “‘As to the meaning of 
literary influence, when applied to an individual, there is for- 
tunate agreement among specialists in the subject. Mere 
imitation is not ignored by them, but it is no longer confused 
with literary influence. Literary influence does not take place 
until an author begins to produce independently and spon- 
taneously after the manner of a predecessor. There is nothing 
servile about such a relation.’’ Price, as may be concluded 
from this excerpt, treats not only of true influence, i.e., of cases 
where a German writer produced “independently and spon- 
taneously after the manner of an English predecessor,” but he 
deals with conscious imitation as well. Suffice it here to say, 
that in reviewer’s opinion the compiler devotes too much 
time and space to this sort of influence, if indeed it can be called 
such. Unless the new product, or, as the case may be, the 
numberless imitations for example of the Vicar of Wakefield or 
of the Sentimental Journey can be shown to be endowed with 
new, German characteristics, and with a new pervading spirit, 
or unless it can be demonstrated what caused the imitations to 
spring up, whether it was a dormant or long-felt want, or be- 
cause the original fitted into German mental and social condi- 
tions, imitations have little more claim to be considered here 
than have translations, to which, by the way, Price devotes far 
too much space. Price, however, continues: “It is not to be 
thought that an influence changes the character of any man or 


6 


Reviews and Notes 


of any author’s writings. ‘Was im Menschen nicht ist, kommt 
auch nicht aus ihm,’ Goethe lets Hermann’s father truly say. 
A work of literature cannot create anything in a reader. It 
can only quicken something latently (sic) there.”” This pre- 
supposition, evidently the result of the author’s investigations, 
deserves special mention, for in a way, it explains the totality 
of literary influences. A work of literature does not create 
anything in the reader, it only kindles dormant forces. It is 
nothing beyond an external stimulus which excites the creative 
powers toaction. If the stimulus is sufficiently strong and if the 
hitherto inactive mental forces react to the excitation, then we 
most likely obtain a product created independently and spon- 
taneously, or in other words, we have true literary influence. 
If, however, there is no latent force to be stirred to productivity 
or if that force be insufficient to create from within, and if con- 
sequently a literary product comes into existence under constant 
reference to the original, then the resultant work is of an inferior 
kind: it is conscious imitation. 

Professor Price admits (p. 125) that “‘in the economics of 
literature the power to lend is always present, while the power 
to borrow depends upon the vigor of the borrower,” but he 
fails to state clearly wherein this vigor consists. It does not 
suffice to say that the creative powers of a writer are stimulated 
to activity by a foreign work of literature, for the borrower 
must be inwardly prepared and ready for the gift. This is true 
of individuals as well as of nations. Without a fertile soil the 
borrowed seed will not thrive, or as Wolfgang Menzel put it in 
his Deutsche Literatur (v. I, p.47): ‘‘Wir interessieren uns immer 
fiir dasjenige Fremde was gerade mit unserer Bildungsstufe am 
meisten harmoniert.’”? Moreover, Price frequently neglects to 
state that in many instances the native fruit would undoubtedly 
have ripened without the foreign stimulus. 

In the two excerpts quoted Price spoke of literary influence, 
‘“‘when applied to an individual’; the following lines deal with 
the term when “applied to the action of one literature upon 
another in its totality.” He expresses his doubts as to the 
existence of Herder’s Volksseele, as well as to Lessing’s assertion 
concerning the congeniality of the English and German people, 
and further on he confesses his “‘scepticism regarding the exis- 
tence of differentiating characteristics in national literature, as 
well as in national life.” The reviewer believes that if Price 
had been dealing with French >German literary influences for 
example, he might have soon found that there exists a dissimi- 
larity of nations and consequently their literatures. Owing to 
the very fact that both the English and German nations sprang 
from the same Teutonic stock the literatures of both peoples 
show a relationship in content (Gehalt), spirit, and contempla- 
tion of the world which differentiates them from the literatures 


7 


Uhlendorf 


of the Latin races. Furthermore, had the German people always 
been a nation politically unified and endowed with the same 
national egotism as the British, the effect would undoubtedly 
have shown itself in the character of her literature. Nor should 
it be forgotten that, in contrast to the self-satisfied exclusive- 
ness and isolation of other nations, there had developed in 
Germany during the 17th century a spirit of universality which 
manifested itself in the liberal study of foreign languages and 
literatures and produced a singular receptiveness to things 
foreign. This undeniable love for everything foreign became 
in fact so pronounced in the German people that we are obliged 
to see in it a national characteristic which, in part, explains 
their great susceptibility to outside literary influences. One 
of the first to realize this was Klopstock, as may be seen from 
the ode ‘‘Der Nachahmer,”’ 1764, and ‘‘Mein Vaterland,”’ 
1768. This trait of the German mind on the one hand, and the 
realization of kinship on the other, are the forces which doubt- 
less favored English> German literary influences, a fact which 
in the reviewer’s opinion, Mr. Price should have called atten- 
tion to in his introduction. 

There is finally another important point which in the dis- 
cussion of the concept and scope of literary influences must 
not be disregarded. There are certain common attitudes, 
moods, and tendencies of mind, characteristic of certain periods 
and manifesting themselves simultaneously in various countries, 
which are frequently called the spirit of a given time (Zeitgeist), 
and whose appearance and disappearance cannot be accounted 
for entirely by ‘influences.’ Even if the atomistic thought of the 
present, a characteristic feature, by the way, of the spirit of our 
own time, should deny the existence of a Zeitgeist, it will not 
be able to explain why the individuals living at a given period 
are susceptible to certain influences while a subsequent genera- 
tion will decline to be swayed by the same moods or tendencies. 
In view of these facts an investigation which undertakes, as 
does the present work, to determine the literary indebtedness 
of one nation to another, should not fail to distinguish carefully 
between positive influences and the imponderable common 
psychic forces existing among several nations in every period. 
The disrepute, into which the mechanical juxtaposition of 
literary parallels and influences, often called comparative 
literature, has fallen among scholars, seems due in no small 
measure to the neglect of this most important factor. 

I. The Eighteenth Century and Before (Shakespeare excluded). 

Chap. 1-2. Seventeenth century. Chapter 1 deals in an 
excellent way with the general seventeenth century influences, 
adding, however, very little that cannot be found in most histories 
of literature. The first part of Chapter 2 (p. 134-148) having 
Creizenach and the more recent works of Bolte, Cohn, Herz, 


Reviews and Notes 


etc., as a foundation, deals almost exclusively with the history 
of the English comedians and their performances in Germany, 
without more than merely touching upon influences. This 
defect is, however, counterbalanced by an excellent chart 
showing the wanderings of the various troupes. The remainder 
of the chapter deals mostly with Ayrer, who, not unlike Her- 
zog Julius, was doubtless influenced somewhat by the come- 
dians, but as Wodick and especially Gundolf have shown, is 
primarily a disciple of Hans Sachs. After all, then, these 
actors gave Germany little beyond plots and theatrical appara- 
tus. The people of the country where the armies of all Europe 
were waging war had few higher interests—they wanted diver- 
sion, and that was furnished in a rather crude way by the 
wandering troupes. 

Chap. 3. The Eighteenth century in general. Price is follow- 
ing Prof. A. R. Hohlfeld by distinguishing three distinct groups 
of English authors, embodying as many different tendencies 
which in three succeeding periods affected the German pre- 
classical eighteenth century literature. While this classification 
is on the whole satisfactory the reviewer has tried in vain to 
detect in Thomson strong French affiliations, clear thinking 
and clear writing,!° which are considered characteristics of the 
first group, Addison-Pope.! Thomson, in the reviewer’s 
opinion, is rather related more closely to the second, the Milton- 
Young group, the third wave of influence being Shakespeare- 
Ossian-Reliques. On p. 157 Price makes the following sweeping 
statement: “It is true that in the attempt to follow the English 
models new concepts were added to the German language: 
friendship, religious fervor, patriotism, sentimentality, religious 
introspection. . . . ’’ While noone will doubt this to be true of 
sentimentality, nor that the patriotic German writers admired 
their politically more independent cousins across the channel, 
the attempt to trace the origin of such concepts as friendship 
(cf. 167), religious fervor and religious introspection to England 
seems almost ridiculous. Has Mr. Price forgotten Simon Dach’s 
famous poem “‘Lob der Freundschaft,” or is he unaware of the 
extraordinary influence exerted by German mystics and theos- 
ophists such as Sebastian Franck, Schwenkfeld, Weigel and 
Boehme upon the religious life in England during the seven- 
teenth century? Of the German writers who are treated in this 
chapter as having been influenced by eighteenth century 
England, Lichtenberg and Hagedorn are the most important. 
For these Mr. Price had before him the standard works of 


10 Leon Morel, James Thomson, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris 1895, arrives at 
conclusions quite different. Cf. pp. 412-483. 

11 Cf. p. 236, where Price admits that Thomson submits to no strict classifi 
cation as a literary influence. 


9 


Uhlendorf 


Kleineibst and Coffman, concerning which little is said, how- 
ever, in the way of criticism. Next the compiler devotes several 
pages to mediums of international exchange, such as journals, 
etc., leaving the moral weeklies for a later discussion. The 
Chapter is concluded with several pages on each of the follow- 
ing: Dryden, Prior, Bunyan,” and the satirists Defoe and Swift. 
The parts relating to Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels are 
devoted to translations and imitations only, as is also the mater- 
ial on Butler’s Hudibras. Lastly, Price makes short mention 
of the American Revolution in the works of some German 
writers. 

Chap. 4. Addison and the moral weeklies. Umbach is the 
main source of this review of the effect of the English moral 
weeklies. Only once (p. 194) does Price examine critically 
the material presented by this author who confesses that 
with regard to Haller he has reached no definite results. The 
assertion that the literary feud between the Ziirich and Leipzig 
group marks the beginning of literary criticism in Germany 
because it was influenced by the English weeklies, must be 
considered a slight exaggeration, if we remember Christian 
Thomasius’ Monatsgespraiche, 1688-9, Tentzel’s Unterredungen, — 
1689-98, and similar publications before the appearance of the 
English weeklies. 

Chap. 5. Pope. Notwithstanding the fact that a consider- 
able part of the chapter is devoted to translations, it deserves 
our interest. There is, however, one factor, the significance 
of which Price failed to emphasize, viz., the gradually vanishing 
but still tenacious French influence, which, more than Addison 
and Pope, themselves disciples of French pseudo-classicism, 
was working for clearness and simplicity in German literature 
and esthetics. 

Chap. 6. Thomson. Professor Price’s survey of the various 
discussions of the influence of Thomson on Brockes are not 
lacking in completeness, but might easily have been boiled 
down considerably, in view of the author’s own conclusion 
that ‘‘the influence of Thomson on Brockes is too slight to be 
measured,” and that ‘‘Brockes’ merit as far as Thomson is 
concerned, is chiefly that of a translator.”’ The frequent 
translations and imitations of this survey are discussed on the 
subsequent pages. Influence of Thomson is suggested also 
in the case of Gessner, Wieland, Hagedorn, Kleist, and Schiller 
(Spaziergang). Much emphasis is laid on Stewart’s article on 
Thomson and Klopstock, although it is confined to parallel 
themes, passages and words. If external evidence could be 
found to establish the fact that Klopstock was familiar with 
Thomson when he wrote his early odes, and if expressions like 


2 Price did not mention any Bunyan> Schiller influences. Cf. supra, p. 141. 


10 


Reviews and Notes 


99 


“die wenigen Edlen,” “‘ye noble few,” could actually be traced 
back to Thomson, the assumption of influence might be justi- 
fied. The reviewer has great doubt also whether Schiller’s 
Spaziergang was influenced by Thomson to the extent which 
Walz would have us believe. 

Chap. 7. Milton’s Paradise Lost. After enumerating the 
German translations, Price takes up the literary controversy 
that ensued over Milton between the two already contending 
literary factions in Germany. He points out that the Leipzig 
group was stimulated by the adverse French criticism, while 
Bodmer and his followers were actuated by Addison’s defense 
of his great countryman. A new impetus was given the interest 
in Milton by the appearance of the first three cantoes of the 
Messias by Klopstock who, while still a student at Schulpforta, 
had expressed his intention of writing a national epic. He first 
thought of Henry the Fowler with whose life and history he 
had been familiar from early youth, as an appropriate subject 
for such an epic. That he relinquished this patriotic theme 
and chose the founder of christianity as the hero of his epic 
is to be explained above all out of the prevailing religious spirit 
of his time. Luther’s translation had made the Bible the 
national book of protestant Germany, and many popular 
German church hymns spoke of Christ as unser Held. 
In one of his odes (Mein Vaterland) Klopstock tells us himself 
what deeper motives induced him to sing of the redeemer and 
of heaven ‘the fatherland of humanity’ in preference to the 
hero of his native land. The influence of Milton upon the 
Messias must, therefore, be considered of secondary importance 
despite the polite statement in Klopstock’s letter to his future 
patron, the German translator of Paradise Lost, Bodmer. E. 
Pizzo, upon whose work Price draws chiefly, gives without 
question the best estimate of Milton’s influence in German litera- 
ture, calling attention at the same time to the change of attitude 
in Germany toward the English poet. Finally the last sentence 
of Price’s chapter on Milton might be modified as follows: 
‘“‘Milton presented himself as the first great topic of a literary 
debate which helpt to establish the rights of imagination along 
with those of reason.”’ 

Chap. 8 on Young’s Night Thoughts, is one of the best of the 
book, partly because the influence of the Night Thoughts had 
previously been made a special study by conscientious scholars, 
and partly because Price subjects the material thus made 
available for him to a critical examination. His last word 
concerning the Night Thoughts may be quoted in full: “On 
looking back upon the history of Young in Germany (Young’s 
Night Thoughts in Germany, for his Conjectures on Original 
Composition are taken up afterwards, in Chap. 15) the first 
impression is that Young was not an influence but at most a 


11 


Uhlendorf 


fad, and that he owed his vogue to the prevailing enthusiasm 
for things English, which helpful as it had been in the emancipa- 
tion from French influence, was now becoming itself detrimental 
to the natural growth of German literature.’ The final sentence 
of the chapter is essentially true of most literary influences, 
and therefore significant in a summary such as this: “Neither 
of these English poets (Young and Elizabeth Rowe) bent 
German literature in a new direction, but the coming of their 
works to Germany provided a stimulus that brought out 
clearly the prevalent tendencies of the time in Germany.” 
We may even go a step farther and say that Young not only 
satisfied a vague desire for something as yet undefined, but that 
his Night Thoughts first excited a thirst and then quenched it to 
intoxication. 

Chap. 9. Macpherson’s Ossian. After a lengthy discussion 
of the controversy in Britain, and after several additional 
pages devoted to the vogue of the mysterious literary phenom- 
enon in Germany, Klopstock’s interest in Ossian is discussed. 
Tombo’s treaties form the basis of the survey. It is interesting 
to note that Klopstock, although at first a great admirer of the 
Gaelic bard and at times influenced by him more than any 
other writer, finally lost his faith in him, that Herder was a 
staunch believer in the genuineness of the poems, and that 
Gerstenberg from the very beginning thought them to be the 
work of Macpherson, while Goethe’s enthusiasm soon spent 
itself to such an extent that he could call this literary curiosity 
a “‘Wolkengebilde, das als gestaltlos epidemisch and kontagiés 
im ein schwaches Jahrhundert sich herein senkte und sich mehr 
als billigen Anteil erwarb.’’ Prof. Price’s note on Ossian> 
Schiller may be supplemented by the findings of Olive Caroline 
Harris® who sees additional Ossian influences in ‘“‘Elegie auf 
den Tod eines Jiinglings,”’ ‘‘Eine Leichenphantasie,” ‘Der 
Flichtling,” and lastly, ‘“Die Kiinstler.”’ 

Chap.10. Percy and the German folk-song. If the material 
presented here on sixteen pages were condensed by one-half, 
the chapter would lose little in value. After treating of the 
folk-song in England and Germany, Price enters upon a discus- 
sion of the crux of the question: Percy’s influence on Biirger, 
whose famous ballad ‘‘Leonore”’ was for a long time considered 
the classical example of his indebtedness to Percy. Since it 
has been shown, however, that “‘Biirger, previous to the year 
1777, nowhere displays greater familiarity with Percy’s collec- 
tion than that which he might have obtained from Herder’s 
essay on Ossian,”’ which, though containing a translation of 
“Sweet William’s Ghost,’ did not appear until after Biirger 


13 Traces of es Sources in Schiller’s Poetry, 1916. Univ. of Ill. Master’s 
thesis, p. 10-19 


12 


Reviews and Notes 


had composed the “‘Leonore”’ (1773), Price is justified in being 
sceptical not only as to Percy’s influence on Biirger, but also 
to the hypothetical great effect of the Reliques upon German 
literature in general. Taken as a whole Percy’s collection was 
after all a minor factor in the development of the native German 
folk-song movement, the true sources and meaning of which lie 
deeper than the superficial comparative method is permitted to 
penetrate. 

Chap. 11. Richardson and Fielding. The first nine pages, 
one-third of the entire chapter, sum up the differences in the 
two novelists, and are followed by a detailed discussion of the 
opinions of Goethe, Lessing, Miiller, von Itzehoe, and Blanken- 
burg. These go to show, that Germany’s interest in the English 
writers was unusually great, and that German criticism on the 
whole favored Fielding. Yet it is quite apparent that Richard- 
son was imitated more than his rival. The first and best of 
these imitations was Gellert’s Leben der schwedischen Gréfin, 
the first family novel in Germany. Then followed Hermes 
with his Miss Fanny Wilkes, which in turn was succeeded by 
numberless imitations. The Richardson influence had reached 
its height when Fielding’s opposition began to make itself felt 
also in Germany. Mus&us parodied Grandison, but neither he 
nor any other novelist developed into a German Fielding, for 
as Resewitz rightly has it, the lack of public life in Germany 
was not conducive to bringing forth a painter of manners and 
customs. The mass of interesting material which Professor 
Price has collected in this and the following chapter would 
have gained in perspective by a description of the psychological 
conditions of the time which made the enthusiastic reception 
of these authors possible in Germany.“ 

Chap. 12. Goldsmith and Sterne. Although these writers 
are not as intimately connected with each other as are Richard- 
son and Fielding, they have nevertheless something in common 
which appealed especially to the German public. The Vicar 
of Wakefield as well as the Sentimental Journey took root in a 
very fertile soil. As the country pastor had always been a 
favored figure in German life, we must not wonder if the reading 
public allowed itself to be fed on numberless imitations. Of 
authors of note only Herder and Goethe had more than a 
passing interest in Goldsmith. That there was real influence, 
however, is a matter not to be questioned. Sterne’s Sentimental 
Journey, a product of the same time which found expression in 
Werther, acted upon German literature in a way that was not 
beneficial in its development. Wieland and Jean Paul, although 
maintaining their poetic individuality at all times, were tem- 


14P, 286. The first German translation of Smollet’s Peregrine Pickle 
appeared in 1753, not in 1756. 


13 


Uhlendorf 


porarily under the spell of Sterne, not, however, to their 
advantage, as Bodmer and Szerny respectively, have shown. 
Of the imitations (of which Price makes far too much) those 
of Jacobi, Schummel, and Hippel are the most important. 
Finally Goethe’s borrowings are discussed. Speaking of the 
once alleged plagiarism from the Koran embodied in Makariens 
Archiv, Wundt’s findings are endorsed.—Looking back upon 
the last two chapters which to a large extent deal with imitations 
attention must be called to the fact that cases of genuine 
influences, i.e., cases where a writer was stimulated by a kindred 
spirit to the consciousness of something within him that awaited 
development and artistic expression, were very few, and that on 
the other hand cases of imitation, especially of the poor kind, 
were frequent, in fact so frequent as to become harmful to the 
development of national literature. 

Chap. 13. The middle-class drama. Lessing’s Miss Sara 
Samson has always been known to go back to two sources: 
Lillo’s Merchant of London and the comedie larmoyanie. Whether 
the tide of plays that began with Lessing’s drama received its 
impetus directly from England or from the first bdrgerliche 
Trauers piel is hard to say. Indications, however, seem to point 
to the fact as Eloeser has shown, that Lillo, aided by Moore’s 
Gamester gave life to the new drama only through the instru- 
mentality of Miss Sara Samson. This was also suggested by 
Sauer in one of the chapters in his work on Brawe, from which 
Price quotes extensively. The compiler is fair enough in his 
estimate of English influences to acknowledge with others that 
“‘to a large extent, after the earliest days, the middle class 
drama in Germany was self-quickening.”’ On the other hand 
he attempts with Robertson to rank Farquhar as a predecessor 
of Lessing, wherein, however, he is less successful than in sur- 
veying Kettner’s article which demonstrates satisfactorily that 
Emilia Golotti sprang up from Lessing’s interest in Clarissa. 
That there are some traits of the burgeois drama in Schiller’s 
Réuber no one will doubt, but what is to be gained by asserting 
in this chapter that Karl Moor has something in common with 
Fielding’s Tom Jones, the reviewer cannot see. Lastly Price 
discusses the origin of the German fate-drama. He refutes with 
Minor Fath’s supposition and arrives at the conclusion that the 
Schicksalstragodie owes little specifically to Lillo’s predecessor 
Fatal Curiosity. 


Part II. Shakespeare in Germany. 


Chap. 14. Dryden, Lessing, and the rationalistic critics. 
Prof. Price shows that he is familiar with a large amount of the 
material available for the survey. Without entering upon early 
works which have long outlived themselves he makes the reader 
acquainted with two often misrepresented facts, the one that 


14 


Reviews and Notes 


Lessing was not the first in Germany to recognize Shakespeare’s 
genius, the other that German interpretation did not lead the 
way of English appreciation of Shakespeare, but rather that the 
reverse was the case. Treating of Shakespeare in England he 
calls attention to Dryden’s Essay on Dramatick Poesie which 
influenced Pope in the annotations of his Shakespeare edition. 
Then Prof. Price quotes the comments on Shakespeare up to 
the time when the Leipzig and Swiss groups simultaneously 
chanced upon the Shakespeare criticism in Addison’s works. 
While Gottshed was influenced in his criticism by French 
views, Bodmer valiantly sided with the Spectator. Then follows 
the famous 17. Literaturbrief which to a large extent echoed 
Dryden, who from now on more than Voltaire guided Lessing’s 
critical attitude toward the works of the great English drama- 
tist. The chapter ends with a discussion of Wieland’s transla- 
tion which Price justly claims but very slightly influenced the 
writer. 

Chap. 15. Young, Herder, and the ‘Sturm und Drang”’ crit- 
ics. This chapter deals first with the significance of the Conjec- 
tures on Original Composition in German esthetics. Prof. Price 
contrasts Kind’s book on Young with that of Steinke favoring 
somewhat the views of the former who, like our author, affiliates 
himself with a school prone to overemphasize English influences. 
While Kind admits in advance that Germany was ripe for 
Young’s theories, Steinke arrives at the conclusion that “the 
literature of Germany would not have been poorer as to content, 
nor would it have developed along different lines without 
Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition.’ A discussion of 
the attitude of the Stiirmer und Drainger toward Shakespeare 
constitutes the crux of the chapter. The question is: who was 
the leader in the Strassburg group and what does each owe the 
other? The views of Minor, Sauer and Suphan are superseded 
by Diintzer’s assertion that Goethe was the leading spirit. 
This assumption, however, again began to totter with the pub- 
lication of Friedrich’s extensive study on Lenz’ Anmerkungen 
tiber das Theater in whichit was shown that Lenz the young ‘‘men- 
tor’ of the group, was in the last analysis, inspired by Young’s 
esthetics. While Lenz’s relation to Shakespeare was a three- 
fold one, that of a commentator, translator, and imitator, the 
influence of the great English dramatist upon him as a play- 
wright was on the whole detrimental to his own poetic develop- 
ment. 

Chap. 16. Bdéhtlingk’s Shakespeare und unsere Klasstker. 

Chap. 17. Gundolf’s Shakespeare und der deutsche Geist. In 
the forty-three pages devoted to these two works, Prof. Price 
reviews Shakespeare’s influence in Germany from two different 
aspects. Bdéhtlingk in his three volumes approached the sub- 
ject from the point of view of the parallel-hunting philologian 


tS 


Uhlendorf 


of the older school, laying chief stress upon the subject matter, 
while Gundolf is loath to consider plundering and conscious 
imitation as influences, but sees the true influence in the atmos- 
phere pervading a work. The difference in the two studies is 
reflected in Price’s treatment of both. His view of Bohtlingk’s 
work is interspersed with critical remarks which echo the 
opinions of H. Jantzen’s review in Englische Studien. But 
Price should either have refrained altogether from giving certain 
quotations (viz. p. 411-419) or he should have branded them 
rank falsifications or gross exaggerations. Only too often his 
quotations are without the comment necessary to enable the 
reader to separate the wheat from the chaff. Notwithstanding 
occasional remarks and the final paragraph the reviewer believes 
that Price considers Bohtlingk’s studies the best there are on 
Shakespeare and the German classicists—Gundolf’s (Gundel- 
finger) masterpiece of synthetic thought, which most successfully 
introduces order into Shakespeare’s influence upon German 
literature,and marks out the path of development of German 
intellectual life as reflectedin the appreciation and interpretation 
of Shakespeare, is treated with a sort of pious respect. In view 
of Gundolf’s findings it would now seem almost necessary that 
our author restate in a more conservative manner the true scope 
of the so-called influences proclaimed in preceding chapters. 

Chap. 18. Shakespeare in the nineteenth century. Considering 
the large number of investigations into the Schlegel-Tieck 
translation we must not be surprised to find seven pages devoted 
to this classical work. Kleist and Grillparzer, Hebbel and Lud- 
wig, Wagner and Grabbe are discussed as to their dependence 
upon Shakespeare, with the result, however, that none fell 
permanently under his spell. Taking up Heine’s relation to 
Shakespeare Price has occasion to illustrate the fact that each 
German writer sought and found in the English master what 
was in himself. Thus Heine found in Shakespeare examples of 
his own species of humor which is essentially that of romantic 
irony. A comparison of Nietzsche’s superman with Shakespear- 
ean heroes concludes the chapter. 


Part III. The Nineteenth Century and after (Shakespeare 
excluded). 


Chap. 19. Thenineteenthcenturyingeneral. Oftheeight- 
eenth century influences that continued into the nineteenth 
Price mentions that of Richardson upon Tieck (Gréjin Dolores) 
and that of Sterne upon Jean Paul and Heine, who greatly 
resembled Sterne in character. This epoch marks the beginning 
of a world-literature which, exemplified in the Goethe-Carlyle 
friendship, was furthered by Mme. de Staél.* On the one side 


®Jaeck, E. G. Madame de Staél and the Spread of German Literature. 
New York, 1915. 


16 


Reviews and Notes 


we have a pronounced Goethe-cult, and on the other side a love 
for everything English, which found expression in the works of 
“Young Germany” (as Whyte has shown in his excellent study), 
and later in Julian Schmidt’s Grenzboten. Now begins the time 
of profuse translation; Scott, Byron, Dickens, and Bulwer- 
Lytton became strong factors in German literature. Price 
has presented the influence of these writers very well, except 
perhaps that he makes little too much of the Goethe-Carlyle 
friendship, and especially of the latter’s Life of Schiller, as well 
as of the translations of Burns. 

Chap. 20. Scott. The reviewer gladly recognizes the ex- 
cellent features of this chapter, though he wishes that it might 
have been shortened considerably, especially as regards Scott > 
Alexis. Moreover, he cannot at this point suppress his un- 
bounded admiration for the inquisitorial talent displayed by 
certain champions of the comparative method in unearthing 
the secret indebtedness of Hauff’s Lichtenstein to the novels of 
Walter Scott. The investigation which began in 1900 as Prof. 
Price tells us, and was conducted for about eleven years by 
several scholars, proceeded on the whole quite satisfactorily, 
for somewhere in Scott’s voluminous works a parallel for each 
little incident in Lichtenstein could be detected. Only the 
Pfeifer von Hardt, the wicked spy, was not accounted for. 
The inquisitors were greatly perplexed and grieved, for it seemed 
to them quite impossible that Hauff could have developed this 
character out of his historical surroundings. Finally the missing 
prototype was discovered in Cooper’s Spy, and the case against 
Hauff was complete. No prospective agent of the Department 
of Justice or the National Security League will read the 
account of the Hauff case without profit and edification. 

Chap. 21. Byron. This chapter for which Prof. Price had 
first class material at his disposal seems to the reviewer espe- 
cially well done, and in no need of critical comment. 

Chap. 22. Dickens. The reviewer agrees with the author 
that, although much has been written about the influence of 
Dickens upon various German writers, there is as yet no work 
which approaches the subject from the right point of view. Here, 
more than anywhere else, influence shows itself in a new atmos- 
phere, created by the works of Dickens. Reuter, probably 
the only one who has succeeded in picturing life as Dickens did, 
has not been shown to have learned directly from the English 
novelist, nor does Price succeed in convincing the reader to the 
contrary, in spite of his lengthy discussion. 

Chap. 23. America in German literature. This is on the 
whole a good chapter, although it treats little of literary influ- 
ences. It is apparent that Price did not make himself sufficiently 
acquainted with Faust’s study on Sealsfield, or he would have 
avoided certain misstatements of biographical facts. Sealsfield 


17 


Uhlendorf 


did not write Austria as it is in Switzerland, but after his first 
stay in America upon returning to the land of his birth in 1827. 
As the reviewer hopes to demonstrate in his study on the great- 
est of German-American writers, Sealsfield not only saw a good 
deal of frontier life and observed much in the fifteen years of 
his sojourn in America, but he was also gifted with a peculiar 
sense for ethnic and national characteristics, which made his 
stay there doubly fruitful. Regarding the “‘extensive borrow- 
ing” of Sealsfield, great care must be taken not to overrate this 
statement. The assertion that he borrowed judiciously from 
Chateaubriand, Cooper and Irving must again be looked upon 


as a misrepresentation of facts; he neither borrowed from them ~ 


nor is it likely that he was influenced by their technique. I 
do not know where the writer obtained the knowledge that 
Sealsfield published over a hundred and fifty volumes, when 
the total number is but twenty-eight, or fifty-eight, counting 
the various editions. (“‘Der Fluch Kishogues 1841,” is not an 
independent work as Price seems to think, but rather one of 
the chapters in Das Kajiitenbuch. In place of Der Legitime und 
der Republikaner read D. L. u. die R.) How Price can assert 
that Gerstaicker was less prejudiced than his predecessor, 
and that his works were essentially true to facts and could 
serve as a Safe guide to emigrants the reviewer is at a loss to 
understand, in view of the fact that even a superficial compari- 
son between Mississippibilder and one of Sealsfield’s border 
novels, or between Die Flussregulatoren and Nathan, der Squat- 
ter-Regulator furnishes proof conclusive to the contrary. 

Chap. 24. The twentieth century. In this final chapter 
Prof. Price expounds his ideas concerning international literary 
trends, and expresses his hope for a future cosmopolitanism in 
literature. This hope reflects credit to the author’s heart, 
but there is reason to fear that in view of the recent pitiful 
collapse of the cosmopolitan ideals so loudly proclaimed from 
the housetops and of the subsequent general disillusionment, 
only the credulous will share his hope. Moreover, there are 
many reasons which would make it deplorable should the 
distinctly national element disappear from literature. How- 
ever, since the truly national and truly human in the last 
analysis coincide, every great poet will continue to be inter- 
national even if temporary hatred and jealousy should deny 
him this honor. 

On looking back upon the entire work the reviewer does not 
hesitate to acknowledge its excellent features. The author has 
spared neither time nor pains in gathering his material from 
the various sources available. The reviewer realizes that in 
making such a compilation of our present day knowledge within 
a certain field the difficulty lies not in stating enough, but in 


18 


or 


Reviews and Notes 


condensing a large amount of data to a few pages. In this the 
author was successful in some chapters, in others he was less 
fortunate. His method, which is statistical rather than general- 
izing, may account in some respects for minor shortcomings. 
Notwithstanding these Prof. Price’s study is as valuable to 
every student of German literature as it is indispensable to 
the specialist in the field of comparative study of English-Ger- 
man relations. It should be incorporated into every working 
library in America, England, and Germany. 


B. A. UHLENDORF 
University of Illinois 


19 











